LXVIII. orator, defcribes from his own experience the re- CHAP. 66 06 emperor may shine as lofty titles, as fplendid images; but they are unable to command, and cc none are willing to obey: every ftate has a fe parate prince, and every prince has a feparate "interest. What eloquence could unite fo many "difcordant and hoftile powers under the fame ftandard? Could they be affembled in arms, "who would dare to affume the office of ge"neral? What order could be maintained? "what military difcipline? Who would under"take to feed fuch an enormous multitude? "Who would understand their various languages, " or direct their stranger and incompatible man"ners? What mortal could reconcile the Eng"lish with the French, Genoa with Arragon, "the Germans with the natives of Hungary and "Bohemia? If a fmall number enlifted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the infi"dels; if many, by their own weight and con"fufion." Yet the fame neas, when he was under the name of 66 raised to the papal throne, CHAP. army confifted of fome German pilgrims, whom LXVIII. he was obliged to disband with indulgences and alms. Regardless of futurity, his fucceffors and the powers of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domeftic ambition; and the diftance or proximity of each object determined, in their eyes, its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defenfive and naval war against the common enemy; and the fupport of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians, might have prevented the fubfequent invafion of the kingdom of Naples. The fiege and fack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general confternation; and pope Sixtus was preparing to fly beyond the Alps, when the ftorm was inftantly dispelled Death of by the death of Mahomet the fecond, in the fifty-first year of his age 9. His lofty genius afpired to the conqueft of Italy: he was pof Mahomet II. A. D. 1481, May 3, or feffed of a strong city and a capacious harbour; July 2. and the fame reign might have been decorated 96 Befides the two annalifts, the reader may confult Giannone (Iftoria Civile, tom. iii. p. 449-455.) for the Turkish invasion of the kingdom of Naples. For the reign and conquefts of Mahomet II. I have occafionally used the Memorie Iftoriche de Monarchi Ottomanni di Giovanni Sagredo (Venezia, 1677, in 4to). In peace and war, the Turks have ever engaged the attention of the republic of Venice. All her dispatches and archives were open to a procurator of St. Mark, and Sagredo is not contemptible either in fense or style. Yet he too bitterly hates the infidels; he is ignorant of their language and manners; and his narrative, which allows only feventy pages to Mahomet II. (p. 69-140.), becomes more copious and authentic as he approaches the years 1640 and 1644, the term of the hiftoric labours of John Sagredo. 19 with with the trophies of the NEW and the ANCIENT CHAP. ROME 97. 97 As I am now taking an everlasting farewell of the Greek em. pire, I fhall briefly mention the great collection of Byzantine writers, whose names and testimonies have been fucceffively repeated in this work. The Greek preffes of Aldus and the Italians, were confined to the claffics of a better age; and the first rude editions of Procopius, Agathias, Cedrenus, Zonaras, &c. were published by the learned diligence of the Germans. The whole Byzantine series (xxxvi volumes in folio) has gradually issued (A. D. 1648, &c.) from the royal prefs of the Louvre, with fome collateral aid from Rome and Leipfic; but the Venetian edition (A. D. 1729), though cheaper and more copious, is not lefs inferior in correctness than in magnificence to that of Paris. The merits of the French editors are various; but the value of Anna Comnena, Cinnamus, Villehardouin, &c. is enhanced by the historical notes of Charles du Frefne du Cange. His fupplemental works, the Greek Gloffary, the Conftantinopolis Chriftiana, the Familiæ Byzantinæ, diffuse a steady light over the darkness of the Lower Empire. LXVIII. LXIX. revolutions of Rome, A. D. 11001500. CHA P. LXIX. State of Rome from the Twelfth Century.-Temporal IN CHAP. N the firft ages of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, our eye is invariably fixed on the royal city, which had given laws to the fairest portion of the globe. We contemplate her fortunes, at first with admiration, at length with pity, always with attention; and when that attention is diverted from the Capitol to the provinces, they are confidered as fo many branches which have been fucceffively fevered from the Imperial trunk. The foundation of a fecond Rome, on the fhores of the Bofphorus, has compelled the historian to follow the fucceffors of Conftantine; and our curiofity has been tempted to vifit the moft remote countries of Europe and Afia, to explore the caufes and the authors of the long decay of the Byzantine monarchy. By the conquests of Juftinian, we have been recalled to the banks of the Tyber, to the deliverance of the ancient metropolis; but that deliverance was a change, or perhaps an aggravation, of fervitude. Rome had been LXIX. been already ftripped of her trophies, her gods, CHAP and her Cæfars: nor was the Gothic dominion more inglorious and oppreffive than the tyranny of the Greeks. In the eighth century of the Christian æra, a religious quarrel, the worship of images, provoked the Romans to affert their independence their bishop became the temporal, as well as the spiritual, father of a free people; and of the Western empire, which was restored by Charlemagne, the title and image ftill decorate. the fingular constitution of modern Germany. The name of Rome must yet command our involuntary respect: the climate (whatsoever may be its influence) was no longer the fame': the purity of blood had been contaminated through a thousand channels; but the venerable afpect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness, rekindled a spark of the national character. The darkness of the middle ages exhibits some scenes not unworthy of our notice. Nor fhall I dismiss the prefent work till I have reviewed the state and revolutions of the ROMAN CITY, which acquiefced under the abfolute dominion of the popes about the fame time that Conftantinople was enflaved by the Turkish arms. 1 The Abbé Dubos, who, with lefs genius than his fucceffor Montefquieu, has afferted and magnified the influence of climate, objects to himself the degeneracy of the Romans and Batavians. To the first of these examples he replies, 1. That the change is less real than apparent, and that the modern Romans prudently conceal in themselves the virtues of their ancestors. 2. That the air, the foil, and the climate of Rome have suffered a great and visible alteration (Reflexions fur la Poefie et fur la Peinture, part. ii. fect. 16.). |